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#IsraelPalestine - Did IDF deception lead to massive aerial assault on Hamas’s ‘Metro’?

 By YAAKOV KATZ

At midnight, the IDF Spokesperson’s English department tweeted that “IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip."

At about 9 p.m. on Thursday night, the IDF began assembling ground forces along the Gaza border. Some armored and infantry battalions joined the artillery batteries that had been deployed days earlier to pound Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets. Earlier in the day, the IDF said that a ground offensive was on the table as a viable option for the continuation of Operation Guardians of the Walls. The IDF was hitting hard at Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets from the air, but on the ground they would be expected to cause even more damage, albeit with greater risk to the Israeli forces.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his contribution, saying Thursday that the campaign against Hamas was far from over and that more Israeli action was coming.At midnight, the IDF Spokesperson’s English department tweeted, “IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.”

Foreign media jumped at the tweet, interpreting it to mean that Israel was sending ground forces into Gaza, a major escalation in the current operation and a sign that it was far from over.Websites of media outlets around the world, including The Washington Post and ABC, reported the incursion. “Israeli troops have entered the Gaza Strip as conflict with Palestinians escalates, Israeli military says,” was the tweet put out by The Washington Post.

The problem was that there was no ground invasion. Yes, the IDF had deployed troops along the border, but they did not cross into Gaza. What did happen was in the air, where 160 aircraft had assembled for a massive bombing run over the Gaza Strip. Their target was what the IDF called Hamas’s “Metro”, an underground network of tunnels which Hamas used to store its weapons and to move throughout Gaza, hidden from Israeli aircraft.

The “Metro” had been built in the years after the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip, also known as Operation Protective Edge. It was a network of dozens of kilometers of tunnels that crisscrossed Gaza and provided safety from Israeli aerial incursions. According to reports, due to the deployment along the border and the news coming out in the foreign media of a ground incursion, Hamas and Islamic Jihad sent their first-line of defense into the tunnels to start taking up positions. These were the anti-tank missile teams and mortar squads meant to strike at incoming Israeli ground forces.

What these Hamas operatives did not know was that there was no ground offensive. Instead, once they were out of the tunnels, they were exposed to Israeli aircraft. Within minutes, the “Metro” attack went ahead. This led to speculation that the tweet about the ground incursion was intentional and made to get Hamas to believe it was safe to enter the tunnels.

How many Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed in the operation? That remains to be seen. IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman said on Friday that the military was still evaluating the consequences of the operation.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/idf-deception-leads-to-massive-aerial-assault-on-hamass-metro-668182

After Years of Quiet, #Israeli-#Palestinian Conflict Exploded. Why Now?

By Patrick Kingsley

A little-noticed police action in Jerusalem last month was one of several incidents that led to the current crisis.

Twenty-seven days before the first rocket was fired from Gaza this week, a squad of Israeli police officers entered the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, brushed the Palestinian attendants aside and strode across its vast limestone courtyard. Then they cut the cables to the loudspeakers that broadcast prayers to the faithful from four medieval minarets.

It was the night of April 13, the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was also Memorial Day in Israel, which honors those who died fighting for the country. The Israeli president was delivering a speech at the Western Wall, a sacred Jewish site that lies below the mosque, and Israeli officials were concerned that the prayers would drown it out.

The incident was confirmed by six mosque officials, three of whom witnessed it; the Israeli police declined to comment. In the outside world, it barely registered.

But in hindsight, the police raid on the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, was one of several actions that led, less than a month later, to the sudden resumption of war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, and the outbreak of civil unrest between Arabs and Jews across Israel itself.

“This was the turning point,” said Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. “Their actions would cause the situation to deteriorate.”

That deterioration has been far more devastating, far-reaching and fast-paced than anyone imagined. It has led to the worst violence between Israelis and Palestinians in years — not only in the conflict with Hamas, which has killed at least 139 people in Gaza and eight in Israel, but in a wave of mob attacks in mixed Arab-Jewish cities in Israel.

It has spawned unrest in cities across the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians on Friday. And it has resulted in the firing of rockets toward Israel from a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, prompted Jordanians to march toward Israel in protest, and led Lebanese protesters to briefly cross their southern border with Israel.The crisis came as the Israeli government was struggling for its survival; as Hamas — which Israel views as a terrorist group — was seeking to expand its role within the Palestinian movement; and as a new generation of Palestinians was asserting its own values and goals.

And it was the outgrowth of years of blockades and restrictions in Gaza, decades of occupation in the West Bank, and decades more of discrimination against Arabs within the state of Israel, said Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli Parliament and former chairman of the World Zionist Organization.

“All the enriched uranium was already in place,” he said. “But you needed a trigger. And the trigger was the Aqsa Mosque.”

It had been seven years since the last significant conflict with Hamas, and 16 since the last major Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

There was no major unrest in Jerusalem when President Donald J. Trump recognized the city as Israel’s capital and nominally moved the United States Embassy there. There were no mass protests after four Arab countries normalized relations with Israel, abandoning a long-held consensus that they would never do so until the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had been resolved.

Two months ago, few in the Israeli military establishment were expecting anything like this.

In private briefings, military officials said the biggest threat to Israel was 1,000 miles away in Iran, or across the northern border in Lebanon.

When diplomats met in March with the two generals who oversee administrative aspects of Israeli military affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, they found the pair relaxed about the possibility of significant violence and celebrating an extended period of relative quiet, according to a senior foreign diplomat who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely.

Gaza was struggling to overcome a wave of coronavirus infections. Most major Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, were looking toward Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for March, the first in 15 years. And in Gaza, where the Israeli blockade has contributed to an unemployment rate of about 50 percent, Hamas’s popularity was dwindling as Palestinians spoke increasingly of the need to prioritize the economy over war.

The mood began to shift in April.

The prayers at Aqsa for the first night of Ramadan on April 13 occurred as the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, was making his speech nearby.

The mosque leadership, which is overseen by the Jordanian government, had rejected an Israeli request to avoid broadcasting prayers during the speech, viewing the request as disrespectful, a public affairs officer at the mosque said.

So that night, the police raided the mosque and disconnected the speakers.

“Without a doubt,” said Sheikh Sabri, “it was clear to us that the Israeli police wanted to desecrate the Aqsa Mosque and the holy month of Ramadan.”

A spokesman for the president denied that the speakers had been turned off, but later said they would double-check.

In another year, the episode might have been quickly forgotten.

But last month, several factors suddenly and unexpectedly aligned that allowed this slight to snowball into a major showdown.

A resurgent sense of national identity among young Palestinians found expression not only in resistance to a series of raids on Al Aqsa, but also in protesting the plight of six Palestinian families facing expulsion from their homes. The perceived need to placate an increasingly assertive far right gave Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s caretaker prime minister, little incentive to calm the waters.

A sudden Palestinian political vacuum, and a grass-roots protest that it could adopt, gave Hamas an opportunity to flex its muscles.

These shifts in the Palestinian dynamics caught Israel unawares. Israelis had been complacent, nurtured by more than a decade of far-right governments that treated Palestinian demands for equality and statehood as a problem to be contained, not resolved.

“We have to wake up,” said Ami Ayalon, a former director of the Israeli domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet. “We have to change the way we understand all this, starting with the concept that the status quo is stable.” The loudspeaker incident was followed almost immediately by a police decision to close off a popular plaza outside the Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem. Young Palestinians typically gather there at night during Ramadan.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the plaza was closed to prevent dangerously large crowds from forming there, and to head off the possibility of violence.To Palestinians, it was another insult. It led to protests, which led to nightly clashes between the police and young men trying to reclaim the space.

To the police, the protests were disorder to be controlled. But to many Palestinians, being pushed out of the square was a slight, beneath which were much deeper grievances.Most Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed, are not Israeli citizens by choice, because many say applying for citizenship would confer legitimacy on an occupying power. So they cannot vote.

Many feel they are gradually being pushed out of Jerusalem. Restrictions on building permits force them to either leave the city or build illegal housing, which is vulnerable to demolition orders. So the decision to block Palestinians from a treasured communal space compounded the sense of discrimination that many have felt all their lives.

“It made it feel as though they were trying to eliminate our presence from the city,” said Majed al-Qeimari, a 27-year-old butcher from East Jerusalem. “We felt the need to stand up in their faces and make a point that we are here.”

The clashes at the Damascus Gate had repercussions. Later that week, Palestinian youths began attacking Jews. Some posted videos on TikTok, a social media site, garnering public attention. And that soon led to organized Jewish reprisals.

On April 21, just a week after the police raid, a few hundred members of an extreme-right Jewish group, Lehava, marched through central Jerusalem, chanting “Death to Arabs” and attacking Palestinian passers-by. A group of Jews was filmed attacking a Palestinian home, and others assaulted drivers who were perceived to be Palestinian.

Foreign diplomats and community leaders tried to persuade the Israeli government to lower the temperature in Jerusalem, at least by reopening the square outside Damascus Gate. But they found the government distracted and uninterested, said a person involved in the discussions, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Mr. Netanyahu was in the middle of coalition negotiations after an election in March — the fourth in two years — that ended without a clear winner. To form a coalition, he needed to persuade several extreme-right lawmakers to join him.

One was Itamar Ben Gvir, a former lawyer for Lehava who advocates expelling Arab citizens whom he considers disloyal to Israel, and who until recently hung a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994, in his living room.

Mr. Netanyahu was accused of pandering to the likes of Mr. Ben Gvir, and fomenting a crisis to rally Israelis around his leadership, by letting tensions rise in Jerusalem.

“Netanyahu didn’t invent the tensions between Jews and Arabs,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a political commentator and biographer of the prime minister. “They’ve been here since before Israel was founded. But over his long years in power, he’s stoked and exploited these tensions for political gain time and again and has now miserably failed as a leader to put out the fires when it boiled over.”

Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, rejected that analysis.

“Exactly the opposite is true,” Mr. Regev said. “He has done everything he can to try to make calm prevail.”

On April 25, the government relented on allowing Palestinians to gather outside the Damascus Gate. But then came a brace of developments that significantly widened the gyre.

First was the looming eviction of the six families from Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. With a final court decision on their case due in the first half of May, regular protests were held throughout April — demonstrations that accelerated after Palestinians drew a connection between the events at Damascus Gate and the plight of the residents.

“What you see now at Sheikh Jarrah or at Al Aqsa or at Damascus Gate is about pushing us out of Jerusalem,” said Salah Diab, a community leader in Sheikh Jarrah, whose leg was broken during a recent police raid on his house. “My neighborhood is just the beginning.”

The police said they were responding to violence by demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah, but video and images showed they engaged in violence themselves. As the images began to circulate online, the neighborhood turned into a rallying point for Palestinians not just across the occupied territories and Israel, but among the diaspora.

The experience of the families, who had already been displaced from what became Israel in 1948, was something “every single Palestinian in the diaspora can relate to,” said Jehan Bseiso, a Palestinian poet living in Lebanon. And it highlighted a piece of legal discrimination: Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim land in East Jerusalem that was owned by Jews before 1948. But the descendants of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled their homes that year have no legal means to reclaim their families’ land.

“There’s something really triggering and cyclical about seeing people being removed from their homes all over again,” Ms. Bseiso said. “It’s very triggering and very, very relatable, even if you’re a million miles away.”

On April 29, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority canceled the Palestinian elections, fearing a humiliating result. The decision made Mr. Abbas look weak.

Hamas saw an opportunity, and began to reposition itself as a militant defender of Jerusalem.

“Hamas thought that by doing so, they were showing that they were a more capable leadership for the Palestinians,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political expert at Al Azhar University in Gaza City. On May 4, six days before the war began, the head of the Hamas military, Muhammed Deif, issued a rare public statement. “This is our final warning,” Mr. Deif said. “If the aggression against our people in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood does not stop immediately, we will not stand idly by.”

War nevertheless seemed unlikely.

But then came the most dramatic escalation of all: a police raid on the Aqsa Mosque on Friday, May 7. Police officers armed with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-tipped bullets burst into the mosque compound shortly after 8 p.m., setting off hours of clashes with stone-throwing protesters in which hundreds were injured, medics said.

The police said the stone throwers started it; several worshipers said the opposite. Whoever struck first, the sight of stun grenades and bullets inside the prayer hall of one of the holiest sites in Islam — on the last Friday of Ramadan, one of its holiest nights — was seen as a grievous insult to all Muslims.

“This is about the Judaization of the city of Jerusalem,” Sheikh Omar al-Kisswani, another leader at the mosque, said in an interview hours after the raid. “It’s about deterring people from going to Al Aqsa.”

That set the stage for a dramatic showdown on Monday, May 10. A final court hearing on Sheikh Jarrah was set to coincide with Jerusalem Day, when Jews celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem, by dint of the capture of East Jerusalem, in 1967. Jewish nationalists typically mark the day by marching through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and trying to visit Temple Mount, the site on which the Aqsa Mosque is built.

The looming combination of that march, tensions over Al Aqsa and the possibility of an eviction order in Sheikh Jarrah seemed to be building toward something dangerous.

The Israeli government scrambled to tamp down tensions. The Supreme Court hearing in the eviction case was postponed. An order barred Jews from entering the mosque compound.

But the police raided the Aqsa Mosque again, early on Monday morning, after Palestinians stockpiled stones in anticipation of clashes with the police and far-right Jews. For the second time in three days, stun grenades and rubber-tipped bullets were fired across the compound, in scenes that were broadcast across the world.

At the last minute, the government rerouted the Jerusalem Day march away from the Muslim Quarter, after receiving an intelligence briefing about the risk of escalation if it went ahead.

But that was too little, and far too late. By then, the Israeli Army had already begun to order civilians away from the Gaza perimeter.

Shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday, the rocket fire from Gaza began.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-gaza-war.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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Video Report - Towards A Progressive Pakistan | Pervez Hoodbhoy, Nadeem Paracha, Afiya Zia, Raza Rumi, Amber Shamsi

Sectarian strife in #Pakistan

By G Parthasarathy 

  Deobandi and Bareilvi alignments a challenge to     governance and peace.

The two major schools of Islam, which emerged in the 19th century in the territories of present-day India, have traditionally been described as Deobandi and Bareilvi. The sects emerged from the efforts of many Muslim clerics and thinkers who fled from Delhi following their persecution by the British after the Mughal rule ended. Deobandi practices were widely adopted in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and by virtually all Pashtuns in Afghanistan. The Deobandis thus established a firm foothold amongst the Pashtun population in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most importantly, while the Bareilvis remained content with their influence in the subcontinent, the Deobandis reached out to people in the Arabian peninsula in the 19th century. This was an initiative that has paid rich dividends through Saudi financial backing of Deobandi organisations.

Thanks to the FATF and actions by the US and its allies, Pakistan is being squeezed to end support to such groups.

The most far-reaching decision by India’s Deobandi leaders was to make common cause with the secular ideals of India, while supporting the struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi for India’s independence. The main centre for study and learning of the Deobandi school of Islam was and remains the Darul Uloom, located at Deoband in UP. While sections of the Bareilvi leadership initially shared the views of their Deobandi compatriots, those mainly living in Pakistan, eventually chose to support the Partition. On November 3, 2009, Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Hind, a group of Deobandi scholars, dedicated to the welfare of Muslims in India, met at Deoband and condemned suicide bombings and attacks targeting innocent civilians. This amounted to direct criticism of Pakistan’s propensity to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy.

The Bareilvi population in Pakistan’s Punjab province soon found that it had little political space to operate in. The military extended support to groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Afghan Taliban that worked jointly with the military establishment. While the JeM organised the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack was masterminded by the LeT. Moreover, the ISI midwifed the close relations of these groups with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Bareilvis were soon finding that despite their influence and political support in Pakistani Punjab, they were losing political relevance in Pakistan. Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Pashtuns, who are predominantly Deobandi, dominated the attention and patronage of the ISI, and, indeed, in the world. The Taliban also have what they believe to be Deobandi credentials and collaborate closely with Wahhabi-oriented groups like the LeT and the JeM.

Pashtun Deobandis in Pakistan’s northwest and in southern Afghanistan became natural allies of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, after he overthrew and hanged ex-PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. General Zia brought in a new phase of ‘Islamisation’ of politics and developed close relations with radical Islamic elements in Pakistan, most notably the Jamaat-e-Islami in Punjab and Sind, and the Pashtun Deobandis in the north. The Soviet Union then made the folly of invading Afghanistan, enabling the US to join Pakistan in waging a Saudi-backed, Deobandi-oriented jihad against the Soviet forces. Wahhabi-oriented organisations in Pakistan joined this jihad. The ISI developed links with the Jamaat-e-Islami in J&K and used this Deobandi-oriented force to facilitate its jihad in J&K.

Given Bareilvi practices of virtually worshipping the Prophet, Saudi Arabia treats them as heretics. According to Najam Sethi, the Editor of Pakistan’s Friday Times, the Bareilvis in Pakistan, and particularly in the majority Punjab province, have responded to critics by actions ‘borne of the religious passion to defend and uphold the Prophet of Islam, from blasphemy by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, at home and abroad’. This led to the establishment of a politically oriented, militant organisation called the Tehriq-e-Labaik, which soon swept across towns and villages, preaching religious intolerance in Pakistan’s military-dominated Punjab. The first victim was a Punjabi Hindu woman, Asia Noreen, popularly known as Asia Bibi, who was convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly making blasphemous comments. She was arbitrarily handed the death sentence by hanging — a verdict that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2011. She, thereafter, immediately fled to Canada.

The Tehriq-e-Labaik attained notoriety, when one of its members, a security guard, assassinated the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, for supporting Asia Bibi. The guard was treated like a revolutionary hero by the outfit. It now has substantial political clout in the Punjab province. It virtually brought Punjab to a standstill during recent demonstrations to demand the expulsion of the French ambassador, because of alleged disrespect shown in France to the Prophet.

Thanks to the threats of sanctions by the Financial Action Task Force and strong actions by the US and its European allies, Pakistan is being squeezed to end support to such groups. Pakistan is also realising that faith alone cannot hold a nation together, especially in the face of sectarian differences. Neither the Tehriq-e-Taliban, which is now waging a low-intensity conflict within Pakistan, or even the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan has ever recognised the Durand Line as an international border.

India has done well to establish a back channel for talks with Pakistan’s military. A major result has been the signing of an agreement for a ceasefire across the LoC in J&K. Pakistan’s mercurial PM, Imran Khan, meanwhile, has rejected a proposal to import Indian agricultural products, which he had initiated and approved earlier. He certainly does not enjoy global popularity. The world has noted that it was General Bajwa who first met Crown Prince Salman in Saudi Arabia, before the Crown Prince gave an audience to Imran Khan last week. US President Biden is yet to meet or speak to Imran Khan.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/sectarian-strife-in-pakistan-252063

Did Pakistan’s top army chief just back down over Kashmir in backchannel talks with India?

 

• Pakistan’s most powerful army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, is said to be willing to drop demand that India reverse course on special status after ‘off-the-record’ meeting
• The development has upset the country’s military-led establishment, as has Bajwa’s calls for a normalisation of relations with New Delhi in pursuit of economic ties.
• 
  

Controversy has erupted in Pakistan over major concessions to India that the country’s powerful military leadership appears to be prepared to make, following months of backchannel talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.The secrecy surrounding the dialogue in Dubai between Modi’s national security adviser Ajit Doval and Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, chief of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency, has in recent weeks exposed a communication gap between the military and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, which has not directly been involved.

Amid the confusion, it has however emerged that Pakistan’s most powerful army chief of staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa is inclined to back down from Islamabad’s insistence that India reverse its shock August 2019 move to end the special constitutional status of the disputed Kashmir region. This revelation, which emerged from a lengthy off-the-record meeting between Bajwa and leading media opinion makers at army headquarters on April 25, has sparked warnings from within the military-led establishment against a compromise on Kashmir in pursuit of the normalisation of Pakistan’s relations with India.

Pakistan and India have fought several major conflicts in Kashmir since independence in 1947. The terms of their relationship vis-à-vis Kashmir were last officially determined under the 1972 Simla Agreement, following the last all-out war between India and Pakistan. The war ended in outright victory for Indian forces which invaded Pakistan’s erstwhile eastern wing in support of a popular independence movement, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.

India’s agreement at Simla to maintaining the status quo in Kashmir was a quid pro quo for Pakistan accepting that the future status of the territory would be decided bilaterally, rather than under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council as decided in resolutions passed in 1949 to bring an end to their first Kashmir war. The controversy revolves around the interpretation of the two articles of India’s constitution scrapped by the Modi administration in August 2019. Article 370 had previously granted Indian-administered Kashmir a unique status, while article 35-A had protected the rights of the indigenous population by barring land ownership by non-Kashmiris.

News reports and video blogs by journalists and television show hosts who attended Bajwa’s off-the-record briefing cited anonymous top national security sources as saying they did not see India’s point-blank refusal to reinstate article 370 as a serious impediment to talks. Downplaying it as a mere change of the Indian government’s internal nomenclature, the sources said they were more concerned about New Delhi’s attempts to change the demography of Muslim-majority Kashmir. Since 2019, the Indian administration in Kashmir has granted domicile certificates to some two million mostly Hindu residents and ex-army personnel. This has significantly changed the demographic makeup in the region of 12.5 million people, according to the last census conducted in 2011, when Muslims accounted for 68 per cent of the population and Hindus made up 30 per cent.

The sources appeared to drop Pakistan’s demand that India reverse its decision to end Kashmir’s special status and instead echoed Bajwa’s landmark speeches in February calling for the normalisation of relations with India. In those speeches, he had advocated a strategic shift away from geopolitical goals which have fuelled confrontation in Kashmir and Afghanistan for 30 years, in favour of a geoeconomic agenda built upon peaceful relations and economic connectivity with Pakistan’s hitherto adversarial neighbours.Following Bajwa’s speeches, delivered amid back channel talks in Dubai, Pakistan and India suddenly announced the restoration of a 2003 ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control in Kashmir, ending several years of heavy skirmishing. The sources were quoted as expressing optimism about Pakistan reaping a substantial economic dividend from normalised ties with New Delhi and Kabul.

The media narrative that emerged after Bajwa’s off-the-record briefing earned a rare public rebuke from retired generals and ex-ambassadors whose views are widely accepted as reflecting the institutional view of Pakistan’s military-led establishment. At a videoconference hosted on May 5 by the Islamabad Policy Institute think tank, ex-secretary for defence retired Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik debunked Bajwa’s argument that the potential economic benefits of normalised relations with India outweighed the heavy financial cost of years of skirmishes along the Line of Control, the Kashmir boundary created under the 1972 Simla Agreement. Referring to “statements from various quarters about the economic dividends of peace with India”, Malik asked if the backchannel process would end India’s propaganda warfare against Pakistan, its adversarial role in Afghanistan and its opposition to Pakistan at international forums like the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Supported by the Group of Seven, India successfully lobbied FATF, a global anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist financing organisation, into placing Pakistan on its watch list of countries in June 2018 on account of its continued support for jihadist groups fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.India and its allies pressed for Pakistan’s “grey listing”, which carries the threat of serious financial sanctions, after a deadly jihadist attack on an Indian military camp in the Jammu region of Kashmir in February 2018.

According to a press statement issued by the host think tank, Malik observed that Pakistan and India differed in their perceptions about peace and normalisation of ties. He said that compromise on Kashmir could not be the price for peace with India. “Instead of the process yielding selected dimensions of peace, wholesome comprehensive peace is required,” Malik said. Pakistan’s former ambassador to Britain, the UN and the United States, Maleeha Lodhi said she did not share the optimism being expressed in Pakistan about the Modi government’s readiness to talk about all issues.“It remains to be ascertained what that actually means when they say India is prepared to talk about all issues. Well India was always prepared to talk about all issues. It is how it wants to talk about Kashmir,” she said, speaking at the same event.

“We all seek peace with honour, but not at the expense of compromising our fundamental position on Kashmir because then that kind of normalisation will neither be lasting nor would it be politically acceptable to the people of Pakistan,” Lodhi said. To show they were serious, Lodhi called on Pakistan and India to formally appoint and name their backchannel negotiators, warning that otherwise the talks would look merely tactical, rather than strategic in nature. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in a television interview late last week, fuelled the controversy by echoing Bajwa’s off-the-record reinterpretation of India’s scrapping of Kashmir’s special constitutional status as an “internal problem”, and parroting greater concern about demographic change. “How is the foreign minister calling article 370 an internal matter of India?” asked Senator Sherry Rehman of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party. “This kind of confusion must be clarified in parliament. Backchannels are not for making decisions, they are for seeking strategic clarity in conflict. From what we can see, the government is either confused or complicit in some deal,” said Rehman, a former ambassador to the US. Facing a storm of criticism, Qureshi retracted his statement.

Prime Minister Khan weighed in for the first time on Tuesday, following an important visit by him and Bajwa to Saudi Arabia, which has worked with the United Arab Emirates to facilitate the backchannel talks with India. In a live public call-in programme on state television, Khan maintained his previous policy position that talks with India were conditional upon New Delhi’s restoration of Kashmir’s special constitutional status. Nonetheless, a subtle but powerful change in the official position of Pakistan’s Foreign Office on Kashmir had been enacted, journalists said in social media posts. Whereas it previously said talks with India could not take place unless it reversed its 2019 decision on Kashmir, now it says they are dependent upon India reviewing its decision.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3133523/did-pakistans-top-army-chief-just-back-down-over-kashmir

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Understanding The Origins Of Pan-Islamism During World War I – Analysis

By Wolfgang G. Schwanitz

The German-Ottoman jihadization of Islam during World War I led to the development of the first Sunni theory of Islamism. It called for Islamic lands to run their regions under one global brotherhood and to fight enemies according to Islamic rules. Abd al-Malik Hamza Bey developed the theory during World War I; he favored an interfaith coalition with “friendly states” (the Central Powers) against “enemy states” (the Allied Powers of England, France, and Russia). Once glorious lands would seek peace when the colonialists left, assured Hamza, who justified an anticolonial jihad. Since his theory led Islamists into global struggles, it is important to analyze the text that he printed with his co-editor Abd al-Aziz Jawish.

Before the Great War, Hamza worked as a secretary of Egypt’s National Party, which Mustafa Kamil had built in 1907. In the 1905 Morocco crisis, as France wanted to dominate this not-yet colonized North African country, Kamil wrote an article in Berliner Tageblatt on “Kaiser Wilhelm and Islam.” He lauded him for his 1898 visit to Sultan-Caliph Abdülhamid II, who was shunned for prior Armenian massacres. In 1917, the Kaiser made a follow-up visit to the caliph’s successor Mehmed V and Istanbul’s Shaik of Islam Musa Kazim. Wilhelm acted as “protector of 300 million Muslims,” stressed Kamil. He touted Wilhelm’s speech in Morocco for defending that land’s integrity. On a horse given to him by Sultan Abd al-Aziz in Tangier, the Kaiser even proclaimed to protect Morocco’s independence and favored an “open door policy.” Paris was shocked, while Morocco and Egypt were enthused. Thus, Kamil suggested a joint action by Paris and Berlin against London to also secure the Nile state’s independence, since 1882 a de facto and 1914 a real British protectorate.

After Kamil’s death in 1908, Muhammad Farid took the helm to see the British leave Egypt. Both had advanced an enlightened nationalism, proudly tied to 3,500 years of Pharaonic civilization, where Islam was the cornerstone since 642. The nationalists were inspired, too, by French republican values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. To reach their goal, the Egyptians tried to game the Great Powers. After the Egyptians pitted the French against the British and Russians, the Germans offered more support in the second Morocco crisis of 1911 as the Kaiser ordered a German gunboat to Agadir as an answer to more French troop deployments there. This ended in a typical deal as France took over Morocco as a protectorate and made territorial concessions to Berlin in French Congo. Meanwhile, Hamza adopted some of Farid’s ideas after the latter took a trip to Germany. But global views carried local conflicts: European ideas collided with Islamic life and shed light on the minorities’ position.

German Lobbies

Hamza wanted to bring Berlin into the fold against the Allied Powers on the path to modernity, or as Farid put it: Colonial Powers do not wish other peoples ascending who in turn do not desire foreign masters. In this anti-imperial fight, the non-colonial German offer was attractive: We provide you with means, and you keep your empire and disturb the colonial hinterland of our rivals with Islamist revolts until their empires crumble. Jawish explained to Hamza how Prussia formed a nation by uniting the states after a victory over France in 1871. To him, Prussia was a model for Arabs. Jawish edited the first Arabic account of The Islamic World in 1912 and asked, “How did Europe corrupt our lands and Pan-Islamism, الجامعة الإسلامية, do they turn it against us?”

(Pan-) Islamism

During the Great War, the Kaiser supported anti-colonial revolts in the Middle East with guns, money, and experts. In parallel, Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha tasked the Tunisian Salih ash-Sharif at-Tunisi to adapt the dogma of jihad to a global coalition war and to spread it in Europe. Enver also sent Hamza and Jawish to Berlin into the Foreign Office News Organization for the Orient to work on jihad based on Islamism, الإسلامية. This old Arabic term gained a broader political sense but was not yet tied to a clear theory.

To change it, Hamza and Jawish edited the illustrated monthly The Islamic World in German for Europe from 1916 to 1918. Their target groups were rulers, diplomats, and clerics in the Middle East as well. The two also tried to reach nationalists and Islamists like Amin al-Husaini, later Jerusalem’s grand mufti; Shakib Arslan in the Ottoman parliament and a sponsor of Berlin’s Islam Institute; Mustafa Mansur Rifat, editor of the nationalist paper Al-Liwa’; Abd ar-Rahman Azzam, the first secretary general of the Arab League; and reformers of Arabia via Iran to India. In 1916, Hamza edited The Pan-Islamism, as he synonymously uses “Islamism” in the hope “to have clearly stated the theory of Islamism”: to unify all Muslims in one brotherhood and to overcome enemies.

Mission and Model

Hamza sketches a mission: Individuals and groups help each other to defend against attacks. The nature of this pan-Islamic unity relates to nationalism and patriotism. However, it has another origin: unity of religion with similar customs, interests, and prospects without regard of nationality, race, or color. In Europe, Hamza explains, patriotic and national feelings grow on the unity of race. Great results of a group correlate with its size. The larger the area of rule, the more borders vanish between the peoples the better. Although nationalism and patriotism have a higher ethical and practical value than tribalism, the highest goal is philanthropy and unification. Hamza quotes poet Friedrich Schiller that “all humans equally born are a noble kind.”

The Egyptian model is Germany after 40 years of its unity. He warns, though, if a union turns aggressive, then it is the right and duty of nations to fight it. Islamism rescinded the racial reasons of disputes among Arab tribes: a great Islamic Empire grew into a high culture. The fraternization reduced clashes of Islamic races like Persians, Indians, and Egyptians. Confusion about Islamism led non-Muslims to think that its only sense is Islamic unity for aggressive aims. In truth, argues Hamza, the call for Islamism advertises for humankind’s brotherhood based on the unity of faith. He quotes Koranic rules, such as to fight attackers, but do not exceed in defense; and pacts with non-Muslim peoples are viable who do not fight Islam, drive out Muslims, or take their land.

Allies and Brotherhoods

Hamza adds non-religious roots of Islamism: the poor economic state of peoples. Even worse is the political condition of masses due to the colonial policy of France in Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. The same is true in India and Egypt after the loss of their sovereignty to the British. Persia lost her independence, and Russia rules over many Muslims. Russia had also just tried to destroy the Ottoman Empire’s independence with Paris and London. As a result, Hamza says the people need a great unity and force to resist imperial foes. Muslims will awake, predicts Hamza, and rise against the tyrannical despotism of France, England, and Russia. The goal of Islamism lies in uniting a large part of the world by liberating peoples of foreign rule. Muslims fell to their enemies’ greed and failed to adapt to the faster pace of the new times. Islamism will be a thorn in the eye of those who want to plunder nations. However, this did not include Germany, where Islamism meets broad understanding and official support.

Then, Hamza announces his article on Pan-Islamism’s Practical Goals. In mid-1917, he names Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani the spiritual founder of Islamism, but Hamza laments that the Islamist movement lacks a “programmatic organization and action.” There is a need to create a political society in Istanbul with affiliates in capitals to unite Muslims and to get help for their economies.

Minorities and Gaps

As Hamza edited his Theory of Islamism, the Great War intensified. The Ottoman call for a coalition jihad turned also against local minorities: an attempted genocide hit Jews in Greater Syria and a realized genocide killed Christians like Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians. Grand Vizier Talat Pasha wanted to “disperse the Armenians like the Jews in western Europe,” while Enver Pasha confirmed an ongoing extermination in late 1915. Hamza ignores all these atrocities.

To live without regard of nationality, race, or color is a great revolutionary idea, though only to be done inclusively. Hamza’s ideal goes beyond tribes for a higher unity of faith. Looking to the roots of his ideology and the Muslim Brotherhood, his theory seems to be its birth certificate. He blames colonialists for all miseries, asking about Islamic lands: Why did some fail to adapt to a faster pace of modern times? He implies that something went wrong before the colonial era. If those lands would have been a solid state, then colonization could not have taken place there. Hamza disregards the longer Islamic colonization that Jawish describes in his mid-1917 text as “expansion by wars of faith.”

Current Islamism’s Historical Roots

Co-editor Jawish asks about the misuse of Islamism against its own interests. The German-Ottoman jihadization that he advanced was a “revolutionary” blow against the usually moderate if not conservative modernism. In the then-unleashed radicalization, Berlin was driven less by an affinity to Islam, but rather by the potential of jihadist revolts against the empires of London, Paris, and Petersburg. Half a century ago, colonies gained independence, and formal liberation succeeded. Most leaders turned to nation building. After nationhood, some countries and leaders turned away from Islamism—just to revive it in the new millennium. Consider Jawish: Mustafa Kemal put him on top of an Islamism campaign. Jawish also swayed Hasan al-Banna who kept the Muslim Brotherhood going in the Egyptian town of al-Ismailiyya. In 1917, as shown, Hamza already suggested the creation of an avant-gardist political organization as one Muslim Brotherhood with affiliates in other Islamic capitals. There is still a missing historical connection between Hamza’s theory and al-Banna’s founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. It was a stop-and-go story with disruptions and revivals. A 1917 report claimed that before World War I, Jawish’s task was to create Muslim brotherhoods in Arabia and India. Berlin used them to spread jihad. Hamza envisaged just one Muslim Brotherhood with affiliates. Suddenly, Kemal stopped all Islamism and planned pan-Islamic unions between Turkey, Russia, and Iran. He abolished the sultanate and caliphate. Since 1931, as Egypt’s ambassador to Ankara, Hamza watched a new foreign policy unfold without Islamism.

After half a century without colonies, some regard the current wave of Islamism as a third totalitarian ideology. If true, activists advanced it by studying related experiences in Europe and Asia. Islamists of the “Islamic State” acted against minorities, repeating the old patterns. Due to migration, national and global Islamists also apply their ideology in the West where fundraising is worthwhile. Hamza had expected a post-colonial peace. Instead, long warfare is going on.

Conversely, both anti-Islamism and Islamism grow in many parts of the Middle East, where Russia and China returned as great powers and America is leaving. Among regional powers, Israel and Iran built new groups. The great powers active in the region know perhaps a German lesson that there is no need to directly own lands to steer them in a power center’s favor. Thus, there might start a new indirect type of colonization by dissolving borders and defenses of nation states, which could cause a new wave of radicalization. However, moderation also spreads based on the pan-Islamic Charter of Makkah, which was approved by leaders of 139 countries and the Muslim World League in 2019. Time will tell which of those political currents will win the day.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14052021-understanding-the-origins-of-pan-islamism-during-world-war-i-analysis/

Music Video - Saaki Sharaab La Ke - Ghulam Ali

OP-ED: #Pakistan - Increasing intolerance towards minorities

Zafar Aziz Chaudhry

Earlier this month, a group of Muslim nurses took over a chapel within the grounds of the Punjab Institute of Mental Health. Their sole objective was to raze it and turn it into a mosque. They reportedly began reciting Islamic prayers while threatening their Christian counterparts with (false) charges of blasphemy unless they converted to Islam. That this happened during the holy month of Ramzan makes it all the more deplorable.

Pakistan has been named, along with nine others nations, by the US as the worst violators of religious freedom. Since this country’s creation in 1947, we have fallen into the trap of pursuing the same policies that prompted the Muslims to carve out a separate homeland in South Asia. Furthermore, we have increasingly drifted towards a distorted version of Islam which we have been force-fed by a divided and misguided clergy driven by their own vested interests and who thrive on preaching bigotry and intolerance of other religions. 

Experience has shown that wayward addresses from pulpits have done more damage than good to the Islamic Umma.It is a paradox that religion breeds both compassion and hatred. And visible hatred is more pronounced than compassion. Far too often, religion and faith, once sources of consolation, have now become triggers for hostility between majority and minority communities. Sadly, the social-bonding rituals of religion usually breeds disdain towards outsiders. Prior to the 19th century, the Indian subcontinent was a battleground of various faiths and beliefs. But the spread of humanism in Europe came to be felt in India under the stewardship of leaders like Ram Mohan Roy, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, MA Jinnah and Dr Mohammad Iqbal. Resultantly, the sharp edge of orthodox religion was blunted, giving rise to inter-religious harmony. Yet on the political plane, the age-old rivalry between Hindus and Muslims continued as before and culminated in the birth of Pakistan.

The fact that no arrests have been made so far nor any action taken against those who forcibly occupied a Christian place of worship speaks volumes about our ‘fair’ treatment of minorities

General Zia, in his enthusiasm to impose his own brand of Islam on the country, is always singled out as leaving indelible scars on the national psyche that will probably never fully heal; most notably through the introduction of the now notorious blasphemy laws. According to criminal jurisprudence, an offence bears three components. First, is mens rea (‘guilty mind’, that is, a person’s intention to commit a crime). Second, is the physical movement towards its commission. Third, is the execution of the crime itself. In the absence of one of these components, the offence cannot be proved against the accused. The case of S 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which was introduced by an act of Parliament in 1986, made it a criminal offence to make derogatory remarks against the Holy Prophet (PBUH). However, those who framed this law — intentionally or unintentionally — omitted to include mens rea . The result being that an individual charged with this offence cannot avoid the death sentence as there is no wiggle-room to prove intention. Thus, this omission gives unbridled powers to law enforcement agents to implicate anyone, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, for the grave offence of blasphemy. Naturally, minority communities have the most to fear in this regard.

Most countries in the world have blasphemy laws on the books and Pakistan is no exception, with the origins for these provisions dating back to British rule. Yet, here, the problem lies in the inherent jurisprudential flaw in drafting S 295-C (PPC). Reforming this provision ought not to be difficult, in theory at least. After all, the military dictator under whose rule these draconian laws were introduced had no pretensions of either being a legal or an Islamic scholar. And since Parliament introduced the aberration of S 295-C, it naturally has the right to vote on its fate. This is the only way to accord full rights to Pakistan’s minorities, while also reining in the police.

It is unfortunate that under the government of Imran Khan, incidents targeting minorities are on the rise. The ruling PTI must come down hard on culprits and ensure punishment in accordance with the law. This is also essential to restore Pakistan’s image internationally; where we are seen as a nation of bigots and fanatics. The fact that no arrests have been made so far nor any action taken against those who forcibly occupied a Christian place of worship speaks volumes about our “fair” treatment of minorities.

https://dailytimes.com.pk/755244/increasing-intolerance-towards-minorities/

Pakistan Faces Tough Choices In Post-US Afghanistan -Analysis

 By Saif Khattak

President Biden’s announcement last month regarding an unconditional US military withdrawal from Afghanistan has altered the geopolitical landscape of the region. Russia and China are cautious of a potential spillover of militancy into their borders. Iran and Saudi Arabia are moving towards normalization of ties. India has shown resentment over a move that would see its influence in Afghanistan diminished. But none of them face as perplexing a situation as faced by Pakistan – a country that will have to make tough choices in the days to come.

For decades now, Pakistan has been regarded as the mediator of choice when it comes to negotiations with the Taliban. It has been widely credited for bringing the Taliban on board with the Afghan peace process. The relations between the Pakistani establishment and the Taliban are no secret – the former is believed to hold significant influence over the latter. With the Taliban now increasingly becoming stronger within Afghanistan, many believe the present course of events project a win for Islamabad.

As it turns out, such a view is quite myopic. At present, the Taliban are preventing substantial progress in the intra-Afghan negotiations, biding their time till the departure of US and NATO troops. In the past two weeks, there has been an escalation in the number of skirmishes between the Taliban and Afghan security forces, both vying for control over areas previously under supervision of US troops. President Biden’s announcement seems to have emboldened the Taliban, who are now more likely to pursue a hostile takeover of the country rather than accept a political settlement based on compromise.

Islamabad’s recent activities suggest that it is not too keen on the idea of the Taliban having absolute power in Afghanistan. Since last year, Pakistan has sought to diversify its options by cultivating relations with multiple political actors in Kabul. It first hosted Dr Abdullah Abdullah, who leads Afghanistan’s High Council of National Reconciliation – a person previously sidelined by Islamabad. And later a visit was arranged to Kabul by a Pakistani delegation led by Prime Minister Imran Khan. More recently, Pakistan was part of the extended Troika meeting that urged parties in Afghanistan to reach a political settlement, condemning violence and cautioning against a potential Spring offensive by the Taliban – one that seems to have already begun.

Pakistan’s preference of a political settlement that sees the Taliban having a share of power rather than absolute Taliban control over Kabul is based on a couple of reasons.

First, Islamabad’s influence over the Taliban has waned over the past decade. Earlier relations between both parties were an extension of the spirit of Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union. The Taliban’s previous leadership has now been replaced by a new generation, embodied by the likes of Mullah Yaqoob and Mullah Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, who have not operated side by side with Pakistani intelligence officers, nor have they been acculturated through long stays in Pakistan. Their present relation with Pakistan is one of convenience, and one that is likely to weaken once the Taliban move out of their position of dependence.

Second, if the Taliban – who are mostly ethnic Pashtuns – hold a monopoly on power in Kabul, it is likely that it would incite Pashtun nationalism on Pakistan’s western border. Pashtun nationalism lies at the base of Pakistan’s longstanding border dispute with Afghanistan over the Durand line. Islamabad wants a government in Kabul that would see a favorable resolution to this dispute but a Taliban regime provides no such guarantees – especially, given the fact that the Taliban were against it when they previously held power.

But there is a catch to not supporting the Taliban’s complete hold on power: it provides maneuvering room for Pakistan’s traditional rival, India. The current political establishment in Kabul has developed cordial relations with New Delhi over the past two decades. During this time, India has invested over $3 billion in Afghanistan, developing its soft power while strategically encircling Pakistan and thwarting Islamabad’s strategic depth doctrine. Any political arrangement that comes out of the intra-Afghan negotiations is likely to have elements of the current political establishment, and hence, some level of Indian influence in it. India could leverage its economic strength to improve its position in the new dynamic arising after a successful dialogue. Islamabad would want to see this influence diminished but its only available option to avoid this outcome is backing the Taliban’s hold on power and dealing with its repercussions.

Moreover, even if the previously mentioned dilemma does not play itself out and Islamabad finds the perfect balance between both options, there are other factors at play that do not bode well for Pakistan. Over the past four decades, more than 4 million Afghan refugees have made their way across the border into Pakistan. Not only will it be a challenge for Islamabad to ensure the return of these refugees, it might also face blowback as a result of demographic changes caused by their return.

But an even worse situation seems to be on the cards for Pakistan. The current course of events in Afghanistan makes the possibility of stability unlikely in the near future. In the best-case scenario, a political settlement might be reached in which the Taliban have a significant hold on power. Given the record of the Taliban’s previous regime, some are predicting that more refugees will flow out of Afghanistan even if the best case scenario is realized. Pakistan, being an immediate neighbor, will have to bear the brunt of this regional refugee influx. Such a situation would have extreme effects on Pakistan’s economy, which is already struggling as the result of the pandemic.

In the past, as much as 75% of Kabul’s expenditure was supported through foreign assistance. The withdrawal of US troops marks a decrease in the United States’ interest in the region and makes the future of foreign assistance to Afghanistan uncertain. Over the years, the Afghan government has failed to develop substantial revenue sources that would sustain administrative functioning if foreign aid were cut off. On the other hand, the Taliban have greatly depended on the narcotics trade to finance their operations. A regime in Kabul under the influence of the Taliban might compensate for discontinued aid by turning to its current revenue source. Since most opium cultivation in Afghanistan occurs in the region bordering Pakistan, a significant rise in drug smuggling would be observed across the border – a challenge Pakistan previously faced in the 1980s. Such an outcome would have detrimental effects on Pakistani society, requiring years of effort and immense resources to counter it.

The present situation in Afghanistan marks out some very tough choices for Pakistan. On one hand, the Taliban’s rise to power will provide Pakistan with influence in Kabul. On the other, a strengthened Taliban are likely to act independently and against Pakistani interests. President Biden’s announcement seems to have ended the endless war for the United States. But for Pakistan, the real struggle might have just begun.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14052021-pakistan-faces-tough-choices-in-post-us-afghanistan-analysis/

COVID: What's behind Pakistan's low vaccination rate?

 

Experts have said that negative publicity combined with a shortage of vaccines are keeping people from getting inoculated. The country has vaccinated just 0.8% of its total population.

As other South Asian countries roll out their vaccine programs, critics have said that Pakistan's vaccination drive is moving along at a much slower rate. As of May 6, Pakistan had vaccinated 3.32 million people, or just 0.8% of its population of 216 million. The percentage of vaccinations per 100 people also stands at just 1.53%, against the global average of 16.44%. Both the federal and provincial governments have set up hundreds of vaccination centers. 

However, experts say that a combination of limited vaccine availability and widespread hesitancy due to negative publicity have contributed to the low number of inoculations relative to the population. More than 860,000 infections have been reported in the country since the start of the pandemic, while nearly 19,000 people have died. Vaccination 'could take a decade' Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Shoro of the Pakistan Medical Association believes it could take up to a decade to inoculate every citizen if the country continues its vaccination drive at the current pace. Even health care workers are still waiting to be vaccinated, Shoro told DW. Citizens, he added, have also expressed some hesitancy due to propaganda against the vaccine.

 Meanwhile, the Brazilian, South African and UK variants could quickly plunge the country into a deeper health crisis, he said. Dr. Ashraf Nizami, a Lahore-based medical expert, said that the government did not do enough to counter the negative media that is attracting the attention of millions on social media. Both Nizami and Shoro believe that rumors about side effects of the vaccines, especially regarding the AstraZeneca inoculation, are contributing to widespread hesitancy. Muhammad Iqbal Khan Afridi, a parliamentarian from the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf party, echoed those beliefs. Out of 35 family members, he said he was the only one to get the vaccination so far. Afridi added that influential clerics are also using mosques to spread negative messages about the vaccine. 

 A number of prominent clerics and personalities, including a famous defense analyst, have voiced vehement opposition to the vaccine, coming up with conspiracy theories and calling on citizens not to get vaccinated. Such messages are not new in the South Asian country, where clerics and extremists have openly opposed the polio vaccine, keeping Pakistan on the list of just a few nations where the disease still exists. 

Several attacks against those issuing polio vaccines have also been reported in previous years. Low availability, difficult registration Dr. Abdur Rashid of the Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan believes that the slow rollout is primarily due to a shortage of available vaccines. "Countries all over the world are scrambling to get vaccines. We were lucky to have China provide us with more than 1.5 million. We are trying to get vaccines from wherever we can," Rashid told DW.

On the condition of anonymity, a senior government official also blamed the slow pace on the shortage of vaccines. "We are trying to get as many vaccines as possible and might get 18.7 million doses by June," he told DW.

Sindh province's health minister, Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho, said that the registration system is also partially to blame for the pace. "The portal launched by the federal government is slow, so people find it difficult to register. However, the Sindh government is asking people to just walk into their nearest vaccine centers if they are of eligible age," Pechuho told DW.

Others, however, contest the claim that the vaccination rate is too slow. Dr. Ikram Ullah Khan, an official from the northwestern city of Peshawar, told DW that around 65,000 out of 75,000 total health care workers have been vaccinated in the city.

The rest would be inoculated soon, he said, adding that the province has already vaccinated more than 450,000 people and plans to give shots to over 10 million people by December this year.

Pechuho believes that the heart-wrenching scenes of relatives and loved ones dying in India have also made a deep impact on people's impression of the vaccine in Pakistan, and have encouraged more people to register.

Vaccine registration on the rise

On May 4, Asad Umar, Pakistan's federal minister of planning, development and special initiatives, announced that more than 164,000 people had been vaccinated in a single day, and around 200,000 people the following day. Additionally, he said, the pace of registration had also picked up. 

Meanwhile in Sindh, authorities have launched a center that could be used to vaccinate 30,000 people a day. "We are setting up more such centers and will ask people over the age of 18 to just walk in," Pechuho told DW. "A mobile service is also vaccinating those who are bedridden and people with disabilities."

Additionally, the government of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, is setting up new centers to offer the vaccine to around 80,000 people per day.

Rashid believes that Pakistan will solve its vaccination issue. "We are seeking cooperation with China, which has agreed to get vaccines filled and packaged in Pakistan," he said, adding that the Drugs Regulatory Authority is allowing another Chinese company to carry out clinical trials of a different vaccine which would consist of three doses.

"With all of this, we will not have a supply problem and will have enough vaccines to vaccinate all Pakistanis," he said.

Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari appoints office bearers of PYO District Larkano

 Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has appointed following office bearers of PYO District Larkano with immediate effect.

1. Imran Ali Sethar (President)
2. Ghulam Asghar Narejo (Senior Vice President)
3. Agha Baddardin Jatoi (Vice President-I)
4. Abdul Jabbar Memon (Vice President-II)
5. Amjad Ali Brohi (Vice President-III)
6. Mehran Khan Khaskheli (General Secretary)
7. Abdul Ghafar Malano (Deputy General Secretary-I)
8. Istiqamat Ali Samo (Deputy General Secretary-II)
9. Toufiq Ahmed Bhutto (Information Secretary)
10. Fahad Hussain Lashari (Deputy Information Secretary)
11. Javed Ali Chandio (Public Relation Secretary)
12. Sadam Hussain Junejo (Finance Secretary)
13. Sadaqat Ali Mirali (Record & Events Secretary)

Notification in this regard was issued from the Chairman’s Secretariat by his Political Secretary Jameel Soomro here today.

Released by
Surendar Valasai
Incharge
Media Cell Bilawal House

https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24800/

Pashto Music Video - "PALWASHAY" - Rahim Shah

Pashto Music Video - "INKAAR" - RAHIM SHAH

India’s COVID-19 Surge Terrifies Pakistan

By Jalal Baig

A dangerous third wave is threatening an unvaccinated nation.

For Pakistanis, a simple glance across the eastern border is a jarring reminder of how quickly a COVID-19 surge can become an apocalypse. India is now registering more than half of the world’s daily COVID-19 infections—and the real total may be far higher, as many cases and deaths remain uncounted.

India’s second COVID-19 wave has left much of its population breathless and its healthcare system in ashes. There are dire shortages of oxygen, medicine, and hospital beds, while funeral pyres of the dead burn endlessly. “This is not a second wave in India as much as it is a whole new pandemic,” said Zulfiqar Bhutta, the founding director of the Institute for Global Health & Development at Aga Khan University in Karachi.

This is ringing alarm bells in Pakistan, which is also experiencing an uptick in cases. The country had 6,127 infections on April 17, the highest figure since last June 20. While the test positivity rate is very high—a sign of inadequate testing and uncontrolled viral spread—in major cities like Karachi and Lahore, areas throughout Pakistan’s four provinces (such as Gujranwala, Mardan, Hyderabad, and Quetta) are also reporting high rates.

The impact is already obvious. Pakistan’s hospitals are treating more severely ill patients requiring oxygen than at any other point during the pandemic. Another grim milestone was reached on April 27 when a record 201 deaths were registered in a single day. At one point, 90 percent of the country’s oxygen supply was in use.

Pakistan finds itself teetering on the brink as the holy month of Ramadan closes and the Eid al-Fitr holidays approach. Spooked by the daily COVID-19 horror show next door in India, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government is taking preventative measures to curb a cataclysmic third wave. But it faces formidable headwinds: pandemic fatigue, population density, relaxed Ramadan restrictions, contagious variants, limited genomic surveillance capabilities, a glacial vaccine campaign, and a starved healthcare infrastructure. As Federal Minister Asad Umar, who helms the nation’s pandemic response, tweeted on May 8, “Danger is higher than ever and knocking at our doors.”

Unlike much of the world, Pakistan’s first two waves of the pandemic were much milder than experts forecasted. Many theories, none conclusively proven, have emerged on why the country remained mostly unscathed. But India’s story shows the limits of these supposed inherent advantages. “We now know that it was wishful thinking that populations in the subcontinent have some underlying protection from rapid spread and high mortality,” wrote Mishal Khan, an associate professor in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

While Pakistan’s more forgiving first waves spared lives, they also defanged the virus in the minds of the public. A Gallup poll from May 5 found that 64 percent of citizens thought the coronavirus threat was exaggerated. The complacency and outright COVID-19 denial have led many to flout critical and proven public health measures, referred to as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), such as masking and distancing in all corners of the country. “The average Pakistani is not wearing masks. I was just in Pakistan, and I think one out of ten would wear a mask,” said Ayesha Jalal, a historian and professor at Tufts University. “You’re really rejecting science by not accepting the basics.”

Though the army has been enlisted by the government to aid the police and law enforcement agencies in enforcing SOPs, the religious conservatives remain recalcitrant and unapologetic as mosques teemed with adherents during Ramadan and thousands of people went without masks in Shia religious processions.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/13/india-covid-surge-pakistan-unvaccinated/